CHAPTER 4
What vain weathercocks we are! I, who had determined to keep away from all society, and thanked my stars that I had found solitude – I, weak wretch, after struggling with low spirits all day, was finally compelled to yield. When Mrs. Dean, the housekeeper, brought in supper, I asked her to sit down while I ate it; hoping she would prove a gossip, and either enliven me or lull me to sleep by her talk.
‘You have lived here a considerable time,’ I began; ‘did you not say sixteen years?’
‘Eighteen, sir: I came when the mistress was married, and after she died, the master kept me on as his housekeeper.’
‘Indeed.’
There followed a pause. She was not a gossip, I feared. However, having meditated for a while, she said, ‘Ah, times are greatly changed since then!’
‘You’ve seen a good many changes, I suppose?’
‘I have: and troubles too,’ she said.
‘I’ll turn the talk on my landlord’s family!’ I thought to myself. ‘And that pretty girl-widow; I should like to know her history.’ So I asked Mrs. Dean why Heathcliff let Thrushcross Grange, and preferred living in such an inferior house as Wuthering Heights.
‘Is he not rich enough to keep the estate in good order?’ I inquired.
‘Rich, sir!’ she returned. ‘Nobody knows how much money he has. He’s rich enough: but he’s very close-handed. It’s strange people should be so greedy, when they are alone in the world!’
‘He had a son?’
‘Yes – he is dead.’
‘And that young lady, Mrs. Heathcliff, is the son’s widow?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where did she come from originally?’ I asked.
‘Why, sir, she is my late master’s daughter: Catherine Linton was her maiden name. I nursed her, poor thing! I did wish Mr. Heathcliff would move here, and then we might have been together again.’
‘What! Catherine Linton?’ I exclaimed, astonished. But a minute’s reflection convinced me it was not my ghostly Catherine. ‘Then,’ I continued, ‘my predecessor’s name was Linton?’
‘It was.’
‘And who is that Hareton Earnshaw, who lives with Mr. Heathcliff? Are they relations?’
‘No; he is the late Mrs. Linton’s nephew.’
‘The young lady’s cousin, then?’
‘Yes; and her husband was her cousin also: one on the mother’s, the other on the father’s side: Heathcliff married Mr. Linton’s sister.’
‘I see the house at Wuthering Heights has “Earnshaw” carved over the front door. Are they an old family?’
‘Very old, sir; and Hareton is the last of them, as our Miss Cathy is of the Lintons. Have you been to Wuthering Heights? I beg pardon for asking; but I should like to hear how she is!’
‘Mrs. Heathcliff?’ I said. ‘She looked very well, and very handsome; yet, I think, not very happy.’
‘Oh dear, I don’t wonder! And how did you like the master?’
‘A rough fellow, Mrs. Dean, is he not?
‘Rough as a saw-edge, and hard as whinstone! The less you meddle with him the better.’
‘He must have had some ups and downs in life to make him so. Do you know his history?’
‘It’s a cuckoo’s, sir,’ she said; ‘I know all about it: except where he was born, and who were his parents, and how he got his money. And Hareton has been cast out like an unfledged sparrow! The unfortunate lad is the only one in all this parish that does not guess how he has been cheated.’
‘Will you tell me something of them? Be good enough to sit and chat an hour.’
‘Oh, certainly, sir! I’ll just fetch my sewing, and then I’ll sit as long as you please. But you’ve caught cold, and must have some gruel to drive it out.’
The worthy woman bustled off, and I crouched nearer the fire. My head felt hot, and the rest of me chilly: moreover, I was excited through my nerves and brain, and fearful of serious effects from the incidents of to-day and yesterday. She returned with a steaming basin and a work-basket; and, having placed the former on the hob, she sat down and began her tale.
Before I came to live here, she began, I was almost always at Wuthering Heights; because my mother had nursed Mr. Hindley Earnshaw, Hareton’s father, and I got used to playing with the children. I ran errands, and helped to make hay, and did work about the farm.
One fine summer morning, Mr. Earnshaw, the old master, came downstairs dressed for a journey. He turned to Hindley, and Cathy, and me – for I ate my porridge with them – and he said to his son, ‘Now, my bonny man, I’m going to Liverpool today. What shall I bring you? You may choose what you like: only let it be small, for I shall walk there and back: sixty miles each way!’
Hindley named a fiddle, and then he asked Miss Cathy. She was hardly six years old, but she could ride any horse in the stable, and she chose a whip. He did not forget me; for he had a kind heart, though he was rather severe sometimes. He promised to bring me a pocketful of apples and pears, and then he kissed his children, said good-bye, and set off.
His absence seemed long to us, and often did little Cathy ask when he would be home. Mrs. Earnshaw expected him by supper-time on the third evening; there were no signs of him, however, and at last the children got tired of running down to the gate to look. Then it grew dark; but they begged to be allowed to stay up; and, just about eleven o’clock, the door-latch was raised, and in stepped the master. He threw himself into a chair, laughing and groaning, saying he would not have such another walk for three kingdoms.
Then he opened his great-coat, saying, ‘See here, wife! I was never so tired out with anything in my life; but you must take it as a gift of God; though it’s as dark almost as if it came from the devil.’
We crowded round, and over Miss Cathy’s head I had a peep at a dirty, ragged, black-haired child; big enough to walk and talk. Indeed, it looked older than Catherine; yet when it was set on its feet, it only stared round, and repeated some gibberish that nobody could understand. I was frightened, and Mrs. Earnshaw was ready to throw it out: asking how he could bring that gipsy brat into the house, when they had their own children to feed? Was he mad?
The master tried to explain; but he was half dead with fatigue, and all that I could make out was a tale of his seeing it starving and homeless in the streets of Liverpool, where he picked it up and inquired for its owner. Not a soul knew to whom it belonged, he said; and he thought it better to take it home with him, rather than leave it as he found it. Well, the conclusion was, that my mistress grumbled herself calm; and Mr. Earnshaw told me to wash it, and give it clean things, and let it sleep with the children.
Hindley and Cathy looked on meanwhile: then both began searching their father’s pockets for their presents. Hindley was a boy of fourteen, but when he drew out what had been a fiddle, crushed to pieces in the great-coat, he blubbered aloud; and Cathy, when she learned the master had lost her whip in attending on the stranger, spat at the stupid little thing; earning a blow from her father, to teach her cleaner manners.
They refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room; so I put it on the landing, hoping it might be gone on the morrow. It crept to Mr. Earnshaw’s door, and there he found it. I was obliged to confess, and for my inhumanity was sent out of the house.
On coming back a few days afterwards (for I did not consider my banishment perpetual), I found they had christened the child ‘Heathcliff’. It was the name of a son who had died in childhood, and it served him both for Christian and surname. Miss Cathy and he were now very close; but Hindley hated him: and to say the truth I did too. We plagued him shamefully, and the mistress never put in a word on his behalf.
He seemed a sullen, patient child; hardened, perhaps, to ill-treatment: he would stand Hindley’s blows without shedding a tear, and my pinches only made him draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident. Old Earnshaw was furious when he discovered his son persecuting the fatherless child. He took to Heathcliff strangely, believing all h
e said (for that matter, he said precious little, and generally the truth), and favouring him above Cathy, who was mischievous and wayward.
So, from the very beginning, he bred bad feeling in the house. By the time of Mrs. Earnshaw’s death, two years after, Hindley had learned to regard his father as an oppressor rather than a friend, and Heathcliff as a usurper of his parent’s affections; and he grew bitter with brooding over these injuries. I sympathised; but when the children fell ill with the measles, and I had to tend them, I changed my idea.
Heathcliff was dangerously sick; and would have me constantly by his pillow. However, I will say this, he was the quietest child that ever nurse watched over. Cathy and her brother harassed me terribly: he was as uncomplaining as a lamb; though hardness, not gentleness, made him so.
He got through it, and the doctor praised me for my care. I was vain of his praise, and softened towards the being by whom I earned it. Still I couldn’t dote on Heathcliff, and I wondered what my master saw to admire in the sullen boy, who never gave him any sign of gratitude. He was not insolent, he was simply unfeeling, though knowing perfectly the hold he had on Mr Earnshaw’s heart. He had only to speak and all the house would be obliged to bend to his wishes.
For instance, I remember Mr. Earnshaw once bought a couple of colts, and gave the lads each one. Heathcliff took the handsomest, but it fell lame, and he said to Hindley:
‘You must exchange horses with me: I don’t like mine. If you won’t I shall tell your father of the three thrashings you’ve given me this week, and show him my bruised arm.’
Hindley put out his tongue, and cuffed his ears. ‘Off, dog!’ he cried, threatening him with an iron weight.
‘Throw it,’ Heathcliff replied, ‘and then I’ll tell how you boasted that you would turn me out of doors as soon as he died.’
Hindley threw it, hitting him on the breast, and down he fell, but staggered up immediately, breathless and white; and, had not I prevented it, he would have gone like that to the master, and got full revenge.
‘Take my colt, Gipsy, then!’ said young Earnshaw. ‘And I pray that he may break your neck: take him, and be damned, you beggarly imp of Satan. I hope he’ll kick out your brains!’
Heathcliff had gone to loose the beast, when Hindley finished his speech by knocking him under its feet, and then ran away as fast as he could. I was surprised to see how coolly the child gathered himself up, and went on exchanging saddles, before sitting down on a bundle of hay to recover from the violent blow. I persuaded him to blame his bruises on the horse: he didn’t mind what tale was told, since he had what he wanted. He complained so seldom, indeed, that I really thought him not vindictive: I was deceived completely, as you will hear.